


Heaven doesn't seem far away anymore

by Elisexyz



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 17:10:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14048925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: “A real bed and a shower, I might cry,” Grant comments, lightly, as they enter the motel room they chose to spend the night in. He’s grinning and he looks genuinely cheerful at the change of scenery, which is enough for Jemma’s anger to quiver for a second.





	Heaven doesn't seem far away anymore

**Author's Note:**

> For the Tumblr prompt: ["I didn't tell you because I knew what you'd say." + Biospecialist](http://heytheredeann.tumblr.com/post/172111526114/protective-sentences-biospecialist-i-didnt). S2 (and S1) AU, Jemma is Hydra too, she and Ward were together and now she busted him out of Vault D.

“A real bed and a shower, I might cry,” Grant comments, lightly, as they enter the motel room they chose to spend the night in. He’s grinning and he looks genuinely cheerful at the change of scenery, which is enough for Jemma’s anger to quiver for a second. But she’s been storing it for a while now – and not only during their escape, when they couldn’t waste any time arguing –, she’s not letting go of it any time soon.

“I think it’s time you explain,” she states, crossing her arms and staring at him intently.

Grant stares back for a few moments, a slight frown on his face and the corner of his mouth still lifted. “Explain what?” he finally asks, when he doesn’t seem to be able to make sense of it. Or maybe he’s just playing, she rarely is able to tell.

Jemma deliberately chooses to believe that he’s _not_ playing dumb, or she might attempt to slap that irritating habit of playing games out of him once and for all.

“What, you ask?” she scoffs, her voice a tad hysterical. She takes a few leaps forward until she’s close enough to grab his arm and pull up his sleeve. The sight of the scar on his wrist makes her stomach turn. “ _This_. I want you to explain _this_.”

“Oh.” He pulls his arm away, slowly enough that it doesn’t seem defensive. “It was a play.”

Jemma inhales, lifting her eyebrows. “A _play_?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs, his tone flat. “If I wanted to get out of there without you having to blow your cover I had to do _something_ — I figured that if I could get Coulson to see how sorry I was, or Skye to pity me, or something along those lines, they would have let me back on the team, in time. At the very least it would have made me seem less dangerous.”

A play, he says. All strategic, because he always has an angle, a plan, contingencies for the plan and contingencies for the contingencies. He delivers it all with a straight face and his standard briefing tone, and yet—

“You could have _told_ me,” she snaps, but it’s not really what she wanted to say.

“I was monitored,” he protests.

“ _Bullshit_ ,” she spits out, and half a grin twists his lips before he can take it under control, because the _idiot_ is always amused when she swears. He thinks it’s _cute_. “You could have found a way to tell me and you _know_ it.”

He huffs. “Okay, fine,” he concedes. “I didn’t tell you because I already knew what you’d say.”

“That it’s bloody _mental_?” she yells at his face, and he doesn’t as much as quirk an eyebrow.

“More or less,” he replies, calmly. “Look, Jem—”

“It was _so_ stupid, so incredibly _stupid_ ,” she keeps yelling, as her eyes start stinging. She can’t help replaying those moments in her mind, and it makes her relive her helplessness even as she effectively saved his life and stitched him up: she can still smell the blood, she can hear Coulson’s voice ordering her down in Vault D for an emergency, she can feel her heart racing and her mind collapsing under the pressure as she tried to swallow everything she was feeling because it wouldn’t make _sense_ in the eyes of her team, because she was supposed to _hate_ him—

Now she doesn’t have to hold it back. Yelling all her anger out is a good start as any.

“Well, what was I supposed to do?” he asks, a bit defensively. “I was trying to let you preserve your cover, I didn’t think that you’d just—”

“Blow it all to hell to get you out?” she completes, sharply, her breath coming short. “Because you didn’t leave me much of a choice when you tried to _kill_ yourself— _three_ times.”

She didn’t _want_ to leave Fitz, or Skye— she didn’t want to leave period, even if watching Grant locked away in that cell for months was eating at her. After the first two attempts, she managed to convince herself that it was fine, that they wouldn’t allow him access to anything else even remotely resembling a weapon, that she could even try and talk to Coulson about getting him a therapist, under the disguise of an ethical issue— It all crushed down under her feet when he decided to try running into the wall. It made her realize that he _wouldn’t_ stop.

“Jemma,” he says, softly, taking a small step forward and cupping her face into his hands. “It was all strategic, alright? I promise.”

She doesn’t doubt that he’s been telling himself that, but he’s pretty good at rationalizing everything, at lying to everybody, himself included. What matters is the _facts_ , and the facts are that he almost died, three times, that he was desperate enough to risk it and that there was no guarantee whatsoever that Coulson wouldn’t just _let_ him die. Jemma would have gone down there anyway, cover and orders be damned, but— Coulson could have just not informed her until it was to late – the thought makes her shudder.

Hell, they could have simply not made it in time.

There were too many variables and the fact that he still _tried_ it, and _more_ than once, is enough to convince her that she made the right decision by busting him out of there.

“I had to stitch you up, you _bastard_ ,” she hisses, tears building up in her eyes until his apologetic face becomes nothing but a blur.

“I know,” he says, quietly. “Sorry about that.”

When she blinks and a few tears fall, he dries a couple of them with his thumb, and she can’t help lingering into the touch. It’s been so _long_.

“Don’t do it again,” she pleads, even if it’s probably futile given his insistence that it was all very strategic.

“Don’t worry, it won’t be necessary. I won’t let them cage either of us,” he assures, offering an encouraging smile. “From now on, it’s going to be just you and me, no SHIELD and no Hydra, clean slate. How’s that sound?”

Jemma reciprocates his smile, thinking of the days when she watched him set himself on fire every day for John Garrett and she dreamt of jumping on a plane with him and going away, never looking back. “It sounds perfect.”


End file.
